The Forensic Medicine Unit is working in close cooperation with the police in practical criminal cases, and produces each year more than 500 reports which are being used by the police and by the different courts in the legal system. A large number of the reports form the basis upon which a criminal case is built, and the forensic work therefore is of utmost importance for the society.

Most of the research in forensic medicine has its background in these cases. Teaching for a number of different groups, is also based upon the practical forensic work and the research in the field. The building of a database in forensic medicine has nearly been completed, with SNOMED coding of all unnatural deaths that has been examined at the institute. This work has already been of use for other studies in the institute.

The dominant research direction has been different topics in epidemiology, and the forensic unit is working together with a number of different medical research groups. The last years the following topics have been highlighted:

Natural and non-natural death in small children, unnatural death in the elderly, diving and the central nervous system, identification in forensic medicine (The Kaprolat-study, identification of Norwegian soldiers during world war 2), morphologic changes in organs from piglets caused by hypothermia, methemoglobinemia and carbonmonoxide poisoning, cognitive, psychiatric and motoric problems in dement patients, a prospective, clinical-pathological cohort study of patients with dementia in early fase, with focus on dementia with Lewybodies (demensstudien på Vestlandet - DEMVEST), motoric and non-motoric problems in patients with Parkinson disease, a prospective cohort study of patients with early Parkinson disease (The Parkinsonstudy in Western Norway - PARKVEST), sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) in Rogaland.